We gathered in Damian's study with maps spread across the table and empty bottles of wine staining them while rolling around. Nobody made eye contact because eye contact would have required acknowledging the thing that had broken between us.
Nyssara did everything more violently than usually; unrolling maps with sharp movements, pointing at locations with jabs instead of gestures, her shoulders were rigid with the tension of someone who was holding herself together through sheer force of professional discipline.
Damian drank like he was dying of thirst.
I nodded when nodding seemed appropriate.
The silence stretched and stretched and stretched just to showcase there is no point where it might snap.
"This is excruciating," Malgrin whispered.
Damian looked at me with silver eyes gone dull from wine and exhaustion and the particular weariness of someone who had seen too much to be surprised by interpersonal disaster.
"Soooo. How much wine should I get from the Cellar? What’s the status?"
"Ready," I said.
"Nyssara?"
She looked at the map. Then looked at Damian.Did not look at me.
"What's the timing?" she asked.
"Kay's riot starts at seven," Damian said. "Silas creates the secondary distraction at seven fifteen; assuming he returns from Vekros' laboratory alive. Yozi breaks the barriers at seven twenty. Extraction by seven thirty."
She traced the escape route with her finger; a line that wound through back alleys and forgotten passages and ended in the catacombs where we had watched a dead man deliver a message.
"The catacombs are our best option for extraction."
"Agreed."
They discussed logistics. Guard rotations. Contingencies for failure states I hadn't considered. Professional and efficient and cold in a way that made me feel like furniture; present but not participating, necessary but not wanted.
An hour passed.
"Get some rest," Damian said finally. "In the afternoon we'll need everyone at full capacity."
"I'm sorry," I said.
Everyone stopped.
The words had emerged without planning, without calculation, from somewhere I couldn't identify.
I looked at the map because looking at Nyssara was impossible. "I violated your trust. It was wrong. I understand that now."
"Don't." Her voice was flat as stone. "We have a job tomorrow. That's all this is. Stay professional."
"But I need you to know that I…"
"Apology noted. Everything is different now." She rolled up her map with precise, angry movements. "I'll be at my position at seven. Don't be late."
She left.
The door closed.
The silence that followed was different from the silence before; heavier, more final, the silence of something that had ended rather than something waiting to begin.
"Well," Damian said. "That went about as well as expected."
He poured himself more wine and sat down across from me with the deliberate care of a man who had learned to function while drunk and saw no reason to stop now.
"You hurt her," he said.
"I am aware."
"Do you feel bad about it?"
I searched for guilt. Found something small and distant; a shape where an emotion should have been, an absence that knew it was an absence.
"Yes. But not enough. It feels muted."
"That's the corruption. Emotional distance. It gets worse over time." Damian drank. "Eventually you stop caring that you don't care. I just drink until not caring feels like a choice instead of a symptom."
He stood up with inappropriate whimsy in his movements.
"Tomorrow we save the empire. After that, you figure out how to save yourself." He walked toward the door. "Assuming any of us survive."
"And if I can't save myself?"
"Then you become like me. Empty. Like that fucking wine bottle. Going through the motions of being human without remembering what it felt like." He paused at the threshold. "I hope you find another way, Yozi. I really do. That’s what people who pretend to care would say."
He left.
Staring into the air, I counted nothing.
I sat down on the floor with my back against the wall and stared at the black veins on my arms. They had spread during the day; past my elbows now, creeping up toward my shoulders, reaching for my heart with patient hunger.
Close.
They are so damn close.
"You're thinking too loud," Malgrin said.
"I need more power for tomorrow."
"I know. But Yozi.."
"Can you give me something new? Something stronger than what I have?"
"I can. But the cost will be significant."
"I'll pay it."
"Why?" Malgrin asked. "And don’t even attempt a ‘tactical answer’."
I thought about Nyssara looking through me like I wasn't there.About Damian drinking himself into numbness just to get through each day.
"Because I broke everything else," I said. "Functionality is the only tool I have to fix things.."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Silence.
"That's still transactional."
"Everything is transactional."
"Is it?"
I didn't answer.
Malgrin was quiet for a long moment. Then:
"You know what's strange? Three hundred years. Hundreds of hosts. And you're the first one who actually argues with me. Who negotiates. Who treats this like a partnership instead of possession."
"What's your point?"
"My point is I've been watching you hollow out. Watching you calculate away your humanity piece by piece. And I thought; good. That's what I wanted. A host who'd do anything for the show."
"And?"
"And I was wrong. You're more interesting when you're struggling. When you're trying to be something besides efficient."
I looked at my hands. The black veins are visible even in the dim light.
"I'm failing."
"You're trying. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yes." His voice was serious in a way I'd rarely heard. "Empty things don't try. They just float through life and accept. You're still fighting it; even when you don't know how, even when you fail, you're still fighting. That's not nothing."
I felt something in my chest. Small. Unfamiliar. Not quite warmth and not quite pain; something in between that I couldn't name.
"Are you trying to be encouraging?"
"I'm trying to say I want you to survive tomorrow. Not for my broadcast.. Not for entertainment. Because watching you fail at being human is more interesting than watching you succeed at being empty."
"That's the worst encouragement I've ever received."
"It's honest. Honest is better than comforting."
I looked at my arms again.
The veins.
They had pulled back. Slightly. Maybe half a centimeter.
"Huh," Malgrin said. "That's new."
"What's happening?"
The veins were still dark. Still dangerous. Still reaching.But moving the wrong direction for the first time since the pact began.
Proof that I wasn't completely gone.
Was it because of Malgrin?
“Wait did you just say ‘broadcast’?” I asked.
"Yes and you might be wondering what new powers I have in store for you? They are called “Schatten-Blades”- weapons made out of blood and shadows, as well as your own imagination. These cut through matter and magic and reality itself."
"Cost?"
"Your palms split when you manifest them. The wounds won't heal until you sleep. Use too many and you bleed out."
"How many can I use?"
"Six safely. Maybe eight if you're desperate. More than that and you die."
"And the corruption?"
"Accelerates. Hard. The veins will spread past where they are now. Probably reach your heart by the end of tomorrow."
The math was simple. Brutal. Clear.
I'd bought a day with that half centimeter of receded corruption.
Tomorrow I'd spend it all. And more.
"Do it," I said.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Then close your eyes."
I did and suddenly my heart was sizzling like meat pressed against hot iron.
The pain was sharp, immediate and lingering; the first clear sensation I'd felt since the slap this morning. My palms split open along lines I couldn't see, not deep but enough to bleed, and the blood that pooled there turned black before my eyes.
When I opened them, I could feel the blades waiting beneath my skin. Hungry for action.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me. Just make it count."
Footsteps outside. Fast. Stumbling.
The window burst open.
Silas practically fell through; exhausted, bleeding from a dozen small cuts, his face pale with terror.
But alive.
And in his hand; a black stone pulsing with cold light.
The Phylactery.
"Got it," he gasped.
Ten minutes later we were all there. Four people in one room. The Phylactery humming on the table between us.
"You're alive," Nyssara said.
"Barely." Silas shuddered. "The laboratory was full of undead. Dozens of them. I had to - " He stopped. Pulled out his notebook. Started writing with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
Damian examined the Phylactery. "This is it. I can feel his soul inside."
"Can we destroy it?" I asked.
"Yes. But it will alert Vekros immediately."
"Then we destroy it right before we kill him."
"Agreed."
I activated Blood-Sense.
Silas' body mapped in warmth and rhythm; exhausted but functional, no serious injuries. But I was right with my assumption.
A magical thread. Thin as spider silk. Attached to his chest and leading outward through the wall toward the Sump.
Toward Vekros. Fuck.
"Silas. Don't move."
"What? Why?"
"He marked you. There's a tracking spell."
Silas went pale. "When? How? I was careful!"
"Doesn't matter when. He knows where we are."
The thread pulsed. Someone pulling on it. Following it.
Coming.
"He's not waiting for the coronation," I said. "He's coming NOW."
Damian's eyes flickered red. Azrathel's voice emerged:
"I feel him. Moving fast. Minutes away."
Nyssara drew her sword. "Here? Now? We're not ready."
"We adapt."
Damian cracked his knuckles. Shadows pooled at his feet.
Silas pulled knives. "I hate all of you."
"How long do we have?" Nyssara asked.
The thread pulsed again. Stronger. Closer.
"Two minutes. Maybe less."
She swallowd. Then looked at me. Her grey eyes hit me like stone cold iron.
"If we survive this, we're having a conversation about how you treat people."
"Fair."
Damian pulled the cork from a wine bottle. Drank. Tossed it aside.
"Vekros Malthir. Three hundred years old. Seventy percent brass. Blood mage. Alchemist." His eyes went fully red. "Very angry."
The thread pulsed.
Footsteps in the corridor. Heavy. Wrong. The sound of metal scraping against stone.
The door didn't open;
It exploded inward. Wood and iron and hinges all at once, fragments flying through the room like shrapnel.
And through the dust and debris, something stepped into the light.
It had been human once. You could see traces of it in the shape; two arms, two legs, a head positioned where a head should be. But the humanity had been stripped away piece by piece and replaced with brass and glass and things that clicked and whirred with mechanical precision.
Vekros Malthir.
--- SPECTACLE REPORT: THE BOSS ROOM ---
Performance Rating: ????? (5/5) Malgrin's Note: "Oh, I lied. We don't have a day. We don't even have five minutes. The Architect is here, and he looks pissed. I hope you like the new blades, Yozi. You're going to need all six of them. And maybe a prayer. Do you know any prayers? No? Pity."
NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED:
-
[Schatten-Blades]: Manifested.
-
Cost: Permanent hand trauma + Corruption Acceleration.
-
Damage Potential: Extreme.
CORRUPTION STATUS:
-
Level: 27% (▼ Receded... for a moment).
-
Forecast: About to skyrocket.
THREAT DETECTED:
-
Entity: Vekros Malthir [The Architect].
-
Status: Breaching.
-
Objective: SURVIVE.